UK asks Pakistan to trace suspects in MQM leader’s murder

British prosecutors have asked Pakistan to trace two suspects believed to have been involved in the killing of Imran Farooq, a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), in London four years ago.

Farooq was stabbed outside his home in Edgware, north London, in 2010 close to the Pakistani political party’s international headquarters.

Documents obtained by BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ programme last night name the suspects as Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif
Khan Kamran. They are believed to be in Pakistani custody but not under formal arrest.

The investigation into Farooq’s murder has seen more than 4,000 people interviewed, but so far the only person arrested in the case has been Iftikhar Hussain, the nephew of MQM’s London-based leader Altaf Hussain.

He was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, but is now on bail. It is an arrest the party says was based on wrong information.

In November 2011, 14 months after the murder, Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said his force was liaising with Pakistani authorities over two arrests believed to have been made in Karachi.

Since then, however, the force has refused to confirm or deny that it is seeking Pakistani assistance.

The Pakistani government has denied anyone has been arrested and officials have failed to respond to questions about the request from the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.

The documents, obtained by BBC from official sources in Pakistan, suggest Syed and Kamran secured UK visas on the basis of being granted admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences (LAMS) in east London.

Records show that both men left the UK on September 16, 2010, a few hours after the murder had happened, and flew to
Sri Lanka, and then on to Karachi on the September 19.

The documents name two other men.

One is Karachi-based businessman Muazzam Ali Khan, of Comnet Enterprises, who is believed to have endorsed the suspects’ UK visa applications and was in regular contact with Iftikhar Hussain throughout 2010.

The other is Atif Siddique, an educational consultant in Karachi, who is believed to have processed them.

The UK Home Office has refused to say whether or not it believes LAMS broke the rules but has said it is not currently investigating the college.

Documents lodged with the Sindh High Court refer to another man, Khalid Shamim, who is believed to have helped the
two suspects return to Pakistan.